This paper explores the extent to which critique in the educational sciences can be mechanized. This is the case when critique of pedagogical concepts and discourses is entirely determined by the structures and processes of the critique itself. If the process of critique functions independently of the specificity and concreteness of its object,…

Philosophical anthropologies (PAs) -- ontological assumptions about human species-nature -- have long faced Foucauldian post-structural rejection of their value and legitimacy in explaining sociological problematics. In this article I endorse Bourdieu's resistance to a post-PA momentum, arguing that PAs need assuming in sociological research. In…

This paper argues that public accountability discourse and research quality processes designed to support it are associated with the validation of methodological approaches in social research which claim to capture the real condition of the social world and to remedy its ailments, supporting an expansion of representative modes of scholarship, and…

This paper contributes an autoethnographic account of how Paulo Freire's work shapes understandings of education, social change and the possibilities and practices of social research. Drawing on connections between anthropology and education (Schultz, 2014) that underpin "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" (McKenna, 2013), I explore spaces and…

Voice has become a common goal of educational research and pedagogical practices aimed at equity and social justice. That is, bringing marginalized groups "to" voice, allowing diverse students to "have" a voice, and setting up classrooms that privilege silenced voices are frequent goals in educational research and practice. In…

The assumptions underlying this contribution are, first, that educational research, like research in other fields, is expected to yield knowledge. This is rather uncontroversial. It is only when it comes to the definition of knowledge, the kinds of knowledge sought and to questions as to whose knowledge counts, that the debate characteristically…

"The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Education" provides a comprehensive, global, invitational, and accessible overview of contemporary issues in the field of philosophy of education. It includes a wide range of topics, ideas, and diverse perspectives from around the world, and features an editorial board composed entirely of women.…

With researchers funnelled into lucrative research practices that value fast scholarship, we explore ethical practice as an ethico-onto-epistemological project. Through collective biography, diffractive choreography, and poetry, we map systems of entrapment that manifest power relations in the academy. We argue the posthumanist ethical practice is…

Dominant discourses in physical education research center on subject-wide crisis. This is despite repeated calls to address enduring concerns about how physical education is taught. In short, the subject seems caught in Groundhog Day (defined by Oxford Dictionaries (n.d.) as "a situation in which a series of unwelcome or tedious events appear…

The twofold aim of this paper is to describe the specificity of education in Poland and to explore the potential and the limitations of the concept of cultural codes for investigating this specificity. With reference to Max Weber's methodology of ideal types, and following the inquires of Sowa (2011), Leder (2014) and Hryniewicz (2015), as well as…

It is challenging to define who Michel Foucault was, whether he was a theorist, a philosopher, a historian, or a critic. In many of his books, and essays, Foucault denied being a philosopher or a theorist, nor did he want to be called a writer or a prophet. He described himself as an experimenter by saying that his work simply consists of…

This paper outlines a theoretical context for research into "the subject of ethics" in terms of how students come to see themselves as self-reflective actors. I maintain that the "subject of ethics," or ethical subjectivity, has been overlooked as a necessary aspect of creating politically transformative spaces in education. At…

The demand for evidence in particular forms shapes contemporary educational policy, curriculum studies' debates over the politics of knowledge "versus" wisdom, and research into classroom practice. This paper provides a genealogical trace that examines the arbitrary and historical linkage of discourses of vision (especially when vision…

Inequalities have historically been conceptualised and empirically explored with primary reference to the human. Both measurements of educational inequalities through the production of data about students, teachers and schools, and ethnographic explorations of inequalities in the spoken accounts of human actors in schools can elide affective…

This article draws on Foucault's later work to consider in an exploratory but specific way how that work can inform educational research. It introduces the concepts of "capillary discourses" and "fissure points" to show, by way of example, how a regime of truth such as neoliberalism shapes lifelong learning theory, the pedagogy…